I think social media affects relationship maintenance in some positive and some negative ways; positive in that partners are able to maintain intimacy over longer distances or time periods and communication is made easier, but negative in that the expectation of communication can make expectations of a relationship difficult. I know in my relationship, we had to manage our expectations around the other’s texting habits because it was upsetting both of us at the frequency of communication, but only because the world had made constant availability the norm.

It’s interesting that this preference is getting more and more distinct, rather than less pronounced. In a progressive society that is trying to reduce the amount of gender stereotypes that are displayed in our society, this one doesn’t seem to be one that’s very challenged. I know for myself, I definitely didn’t want to be approaching people when I was romantically engaging with new others, and my now-boyfriend is the one that reached out to me first. I don’t think female-initiating dances would work anymore either, as it’s clear that society dictates that men should be pursuing women. Why hasn’t this standard gone away when so many others have?

This speed dating experiment is really interesting, as I’ve heard of all of these studies that show that men value attractiveness and women value economic status, and that that supports an evolutionary hypothesis. It’s intriguing that a more ecologically valid approach shows us that these findings aren’t necessarily true, and that men and women aren’t very different in what we desire in a partner when in a real situation.

We’ve talked about this a lot in Intergroup Dialogue Project; about how it’s easier to make friends that are the same as you, but it makes it more difficult to hear about experiences different than your own and start to go against your cycle of socialization. I am glad to see later in this section that we are getting less and less homophilic in our friendships and connections.

I was just having a similar conversation with my boyfriend, in which we were talking about some really deep issues around insecurities and standards we faced. Throughout the conversation, he made a few comments about how he hadn’t mentioned some of these things to his friends because some of these insecurities aren’t talked about in fears of seeming overly emotional or “gay”. It was really sad to hear about, because we’ve gone through some similar struggles, but he isnt as able to talk about it with his support networks.

This concept is interesting to me as I think it’s something that’s been mentioned on social media recently; the idea that some men being prompted about how others are feeling is a life changing experience for them, where it’s something all girls have done all the time since they were 9. It’s intriguing to see that there is literature backing to those anecdotal statements.

This is an interesting term that I haven’t seen before, but I have felt before. It’s such a striking feeling to know that it wasn’t you, but could have been, and your organization does nothing about it. You feel both a deep sadness for your peer/coworker/friend, and a conscious/subconscious fear of the same thing happening to you. It’s interesting that there is a term for it.

This is an interesting statistic that I hadn’t thought about before! Part-time work does not get you the same benefits as full-time, so this could contribute to health later on. I also appreciated the intersectional view, including race in these statistics.

This finding is really interesting to me, as I’ve never thought about the difference in groups. While men don’t usually have an example of doing non-paid work as a full time job (like raising a child and tending to the house), women do, and do not think of themselves as unemployed. I do still want to point out that it is a changing standard that men do not hold this role, as there is an emerging group of men who are working as caregivers for their families, rather than in paid work. Still, the generalization the book made is not an incorrect one, and very intriguing to me.

This is a really interesting example of society beginning to recognize that the patriarchy is harmful for girls and women, but failing to recognize how it still keeps men in a box. It is interesting that egalitarian views of parents only affect girls and women in expanding their roles, while maintaining that men’s roles are rigid.

I really like this comment, as its apparent that there are some evolution influenced behaviors in at least some areas of our development and behaviors, and I appreciate that that does not have to be in completion with environmental factors/other factors. Working together to incorporate multiple paradigms of development/behavior will give us a better scope rather than looking at one as “the true answer”.

This idea that nature and nurture both cannot be the sole explanation for human development is so relevant; even if a girl has naturally less muscle due to her testosterone levels, if her parents do not put her in sports (due to a belief that girls are not good at sports), she will never have the opportunity to develop her muscles the same way as she would if she were a boy, creating a lot of the gap in sport achievement.

This study’s variables (Iraq, homophobia, and desire for SUV) are seemingly quite random and yet make a lot of sense that they gravitate to them when their masculinity is threatened. I find it a little comical that the desire for an SUV is so statistically significant.

This goal is really interesting, because I know a lot of data suggests that women do better in school than men across all domains in countries like the US, and most OECD countries (where women are given mostly equal opportunity to school access).To think about comparing intelligence, you first must measure it, and IQ is very biased. What methods might we use today to measure intelligence differences in men and women? It would have to be conflated with so many social identities unrelated to gender that I imagine it would be quite difficult

This is a really interesting point; I generally behave differently around men that I dont know than women that I dont know, so my behaviors would absolutely shift in a proctored experiment based around the independent variable of my gender. I think there are so many demand characteristics in this research that it can be difficult to imagine how to fully get around them.

This reminds me of the replication crisis in psychological research. As an undergraduate researcher in social psych, we have to be particularly wary of our methods because many behavioral studies face replication issues when repeated. Using concrete methods and a good sample is really important.

This paragraph was so interesting because I had hear that other cultures have third genders, but never read more information about them. Despite this, it is sad to hear that they are marginalized within their own societies despite their rich cultural significance

I had no idea these influential women had said that; those ideas are really harmful to the true idea of feminism. I hope they retracted those statements and learning more about what feminism really is and what it hopes to achieve, as I believe both of these women would be strongly behind it

This is what frustrates me so much about some of the conservative rhetoric around “feminism = bad”. For a large majority of them, they dont disagree with the idea of feminism, they just have been fed the idea that feminism means something different, and if they were educated more on the topic, they would feel very differently (hopefully)

This association is really interesting to me, and I never quite thought of it that way. I always thought of myself as more of a tomboy when I was a kid, and that was a good thing to be in my social circles. Family relatives would applaud me more than degrade me for being really into sports, strength training, cars, and other things. My brother, on the other hand, has always been more into girly things, which have much more negative association. It’s interesting that even men can be majorly hurt by patriarchal systems